Most democratic exercise in history to collect NEP inputs

Dilip Thakore interviewed Prakash Javadekar, Union HRD minister, over the telephone. Excerpts: Since the TSR Subramanian Committee submitted its report on April 30, considerable time has elapsed. When is NEP 2016 likely to be officially published? The report of the TSR Subramanian Committee is only one of the many inputs the Union government has invited for framing the New Education Policy. Over a period of 18 months, we have held over 29,000 meetings with citizens at the village, block, district, zonal and state levels inviting their suggestions. Moreover we have received suggestions aggregating to over 1 million pages. All these inputs need to be processed and evaluated. They will be discussed at an all-party MPs meet on November 10 before the NEP is finalised. We are determined that NEP 2016 will be a national, not party policy, based on the five pillars of access, quality, accountability, equity and affordability. One of the major recommendations of the Subramanian Committee is to raise the annual outlay for education — Centre plus states — to 6 percent of GDP. How optimistic are you of getting a substantially higher outlay for education in the Union Budget 2017-18? Currently, 4.5 percent of India’s GDP and 15 percent of the Union governments budget is allocated for education. Moreover, state governments are spending over 15 percent of their annual budgets for education. The 4.5 percent of GDP annual expenditure of the BJP-NDA government for education is more than of most countries, including China. The challenge of resources in Indian education is not adequacy but efficiency of expenditure. Early childhood care and education (ECCE) is a neglected segment of the education spectrum. What can we expect for ECCE in NEP 2016? I agree ECCE is very important and that it should cover prenatal care of mother and child, the healthcare of lactating mothers and the nutrition of newborns. Over 75 million children are covered under the Central governments Integrated Child Development Services programme, which is administered by the Union ministry of women and child development (WCD). Sufficient provision has been made for ICDS which is the worlds largest government-run programme for lactating mothers and newborns. For this purpose, the WCD ministry runs 1.6 million anganwadis or children’s creches which also provide early childhood care and education to over 75 million children. Here again, the budgetary provision is sufficient, but expenditure is inefficient. We intend to plug the gaps and loopholes in the system so the country’s ECCE system provides better quality care and education to youngest children. The RTE Act, 2009 which has many controversial and unworkable provisions — no detention until class VIII, optional exam in class X, s. 12 (1) (c) and s.19. Are you in favour of amending these provisions of the Act? There are many anomalies in the RTE Act. But India is a federation of states with education in the concurrent list of the Constitution. The policy of the BJP/NDA government is to leave the matter of implementation of the RTE Act to…